Copenhagen June 4, 2015 Adventures by Disney

Today was our first official sightseeing day with Adventures by Disney hosted by our ABD guides Amber and Robyn.  Robyn brought out the ABD Paddle of Power to get us started.  We started our morning at 9:15 a.m.  (By the way, if you are doing the Escape to Copenhagen ABD and don't want to read any spoilers, you may want to skip this report)

Prior to that we had breakfast (part of our ABD experience) in the hotel restaurant.  It is buffet style and there are plenty of selections. I woke up at 4 a. m. this morning, but was able to get back to sleep by about 5 a.m.  Then got up at 7:30 for the day.

Our tour guide for the morning was Norman.  Maggie and Bo were also there.  So we had a team of three.
FYI-if you are planning on taking a taxi to or from the port on Saturday Maggie advised that there are only about 600 taxis in Copenhagen because it is a bicycle friendly place.  There will be 4 cruise ships out at Oceankaj on Saturday, so taxis will not be readily available.  She advises checking with your hotel concierge desk for a private transfer!  She says even if you call for a taxi ahead of time, it probably won't show up on embarkation or debarkation day timely, if at all, so be prepared if you have early flights out after the cruise.

On with the day---

Norman started us on a walking tour of Copenhagen.  (From left to right-Amber, Maggie and Norman)

We walked along the waterfront.  It was a cool and breezy morning.  But then I think it is probably windy here every single day.  The first thing he pointed out where two silos that were no longer being used that are now converted to condos along the waterfront.  Condos here cost between 1 and 4 million US dollars.
If you have permission to park your houseboat along the waterfront you pay the city $1,000 US dollars per month for sewage clean out, electricity, etc.

Next we come to some artistic sculptures that an artist has made and placed along the waterfront.  They represent different things but they were just black stones to me........

Next up, for those that asked how to get to the Disney Store....when you come to this building with lots of glass, walking from Tivoli Hotel and it is on your left and the Marriott Hotel is on your right, make a left turn and walk about 10 city blocks to the shopping area of Copenhagen.  The Disney Store will be on your left after you pass the Lego Store on your right one block earlier.

Norman showed us alot of the local architecture, many of it from the 1700 and 1800's.  This is the National Museum of Denmark.

This is outside the Royal Palace.

 The horses and buggy being ridden outside the Royal Palace.

 If I remember right, this is the City Hall and you can climb about 400 stairs to the top if you want to see Copenhagen.  There is no charge.

This is the canal right outside the Royal Palace.

 We then headed further into town seeing more historic buildings along the way.

This is one of the oldest standing buildings that was built with wood and wasn't destroyed by fire.

A cute courtyard with bikes

 An interesting shortcut as we worked our way towards the main shopping area.

Came across Mickey outside one of the local stores:

Made it through the rest of our walking tour, ending up at the canal where we are taking a boat ride to enjoy the city from the water.  Got some pictures before we got on our boat

Just for you Scott, the Jamie pose:

Elaine:

 

Elaine and Linda:

Hans Christian Andersen lived here along the canal.  His place is marked by a sign outside where he lived.

We then said goodbye to Norman and our city walking tour and got on our canal boat tour (1 hour long or so) with our captain and his assistant.

This is the backside of the Little Mermaid Statue from the water.  We will be able to see the front side of "Ariel" when we make our way to the Disney Magic on Saturday as our motorcoach will stop for pictures:

There is this building in Copenhagen that you can see from the canal, and actually, the tree has its' own Facebook page because I guess most people get a better picture of the tree than the building.

The Tree

This is the outside of the Royal Palace as seen from the canal.

The old Stock Exchange Building which is now housed with business offices:

This restaurant is called The Standard.  It is one of the most popular in Stockholm.  Some of the chefs from Noma (the $1,000 dinner restaurant) left and started their own restaurant.  Lunch is about $100 per person.

We then head to lunch at the Waterfront Restaurant ABD has reserved for us.  It is a traditional sweedish lunch. 

 Salad, yep, didn't like

The main course:  left is pickled herring (which Robyn, our ABD guide loves), some cod paste stuff, chicken salad, raspberry jam and cheese and almonds and 2 pieces of meat, one proscuitto and one pepperoni.  and 2 pickles, very sour, and 2 cherry tomatoes.  Needless to say, most our the ABD adventurers, did not eat much....the best part....

 The chocolate cake!

 Now it is about 2:15 so we head to our motorcoach to ride to Tivoli to see where Walt Disney got his inspiration and to see the Tivoli Gardens and the amusement park and go on rides.

Tivoli Gardens is a famous amusement park and garden in Copenhagen.  The park opened in August 1843 and is the second oldest amusement park in the world!

Tivoli was quieter years ago, when Walt Disney was visiting. "Nowadays," Sven Hansen, the director of Tivoli's Boys Guard, said in an article, "we have more shows, more concerts, more rock shows on the open-air stage. We have more young people in the park than previously." Tivoli now competes with other theme parks, he said, "so we have to have everything in the park," 

Sven Hansen, now retired, actually met Mr. Walt Disney on several occasions, and the last time he hosted Mr. Walt Disney was when he was 14 and was an actual drummer in the Tivoli's Boys Guard in 1964.  It just so happened, that another guest in our group brought a picture (and was not aware), but the picture she brought was a picture of Sven Hansen with Mr. Walt Disney in 1964!

(This is a recent picture of the Tivoli Boy's Guard, which still trains and entertains crowds to this day.)  Mr. Hansen was the director for many years and spent over 54 years in the park.

Well, our surprise for the day was our tour guide was Sven Hansen.  We got to go behind the scenes at Tivoli and Mr. Hansen told us all about his memories with Mr. Walt Disney (he says he always refers to Walt as Mr. Walt Disney and I, giving him the respect he deserves).  He took us to places in the park where he actually stood with Mr. Walt Disney in 1964 and actually interviewed him.

Here is Mr. Sven Hansen today!

Mr. Hansen stood outside this restaurant in his costume and Mr. Walt Disney had the hat on and sat beside him (see picture above in black and white)

Inspiration for City Hall at Disneyland:

 Tivoli got inspiration for this pirate ship from Pirates of the Caribbean.  It has a restaurant inside.  In fact, there are over 35 restaurants at Tivoli.

Mr. Sven Hansen and Mr. Walt Disney stood at this spot and Mr. Hansen interviewed him right here back in 1964.

He took us backstage to areas of different theaters where they do shows.  In this outdoor theater they do a pantomine show and the only way to use the trap door is to manually open and close it.  Additionally, it takes 8 men to bring down the curtain (manually at the end of each show)

After the end of our backstage tours, our guides Robyn and Amber take us to go see the inspiration for

It's a Small World.  It is a Hans Christian Andersen ride.  You can definitely see the comparison with all the moving dolls and puppets

The Little Mermaid

The Steadfast Tin Soldier

The Snow Queen  (adapted to Frozen, one of Disney's small money making movies LOL)

Next Robyn said we had to try the cotton candy:

We then all went to that old wooden roller coaster.  It looks like it is on a minature Matterhorn Mountain.  Now interesting thing is, we have a brakeman in the middle of the cars who actually works the brakes to slow us down during the ride.  He does not wear a seatbelt.  The roller coaster does not use some kind of chain and pulley system, it uses a rope.  Here we go:

This was our brakeman who we entrusted our lives with:

Next we did a a laser ride (nothing like Buzz Lightyear) where you ride on a boat type car on water and shoot your gun at lasers.  

Stopped and got my first ice cream:  Pistachio and Chocolate.  It was pretty good!

Walked by a ride that reminded me of Ursula:

 

There are lots of rides here, but most are motion prone, so if you get motion sickness, most are not for you.  However the adventurous in our group went on Vertigo (I went on the carousel and rode a giraffe) and the Vertigo is an airplanem that moves in all directions and makes me sick just watching it:

Can anyone say Mr. Toad's Wild Ride?

How about the Crystal Palace:

We then headed to dinner at the Woodhouse Burgerbar and had a great meal and met up with friends Bill and Debbie who I met last year in the Med and are sailing this Saturday (I should have gotten a picture with them)

Got some beautiful pictures of the gardens:

My review of Tivoli  Definitely worth going to.  Especially if you are a fan of Walt Disney and Disney history.  It was so incredible to get this once in a life experience with Mr. Sven Hansen and learn of his experiences with Mr. Walt Disney.  There are alot of roller coaster rides at the park, and lots of rides that would cause motion sickness, so if you are prone to motion sickness you may just want to purchase a pass to go in and then for the ride or two you want to go on buy individual tickets for them.  It is pretty reasonably priced.  All in all, a great time was had by all.

We walked back to the Tivoli Hotel at about 10 p.m. and I had some work related things to do that I am consulting on and then I started working on the blog.

It is now 1 a.m. and we have an 8:15 a.m. start time, so I am headed to bed!  Goodnight everyone!